Navigating marginalization in peace processes: the engagement and disengagement of Yemeni women activists in the diaspora

Abstract

This paper explores the interplay between women’s activism, war-generated diaspora, and peacebuilding in Yemen, focusing on Yemeni women’s engagement and disengagement in peace processes. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among Yemeni diaspora activists in Western Europe, mainly Germany and the Netherlands, between 2021 and 2024, it examines how structural, social, and individual factors, together with the dynamics of homeland and host-country politics, shape women’s agency and political activism. Moving beyond the binary of inclusion versus exclusion, the analysis traces non-linear trajectories of activism marked by pauses, reorientations, and transformations. The findings demonstrate that the war in Yemen continues to provoke strong emotional responses among diaspora women, often channeled into renewed mobilization and peace-related efforts rather than complete withdrawal. Exclusionary practices in formal peace talks, while constraining, also generate resilience and counter-resistance, prompting many activists to reconfigure their engagement into alternative political, social, and cultural forms.